Disney's Waters

Disney's Waters

Immediately after the sun sets, when the artificial lamps become glimmering sources of light, while the glow from the sun beyond the horizon diminishes from a salmon-meat pink into a midnight blue, the fervor in the park reaches a blinding fog. Perhaps the childlike, uninhibited anxiousness of the nightly firework performance is the culprit, but for those who have experienced Disneyland at night, what explodes in the sky pales in comparison to what happens at eye level. The honeyed, golden light that radiates throughout Disneyland when darkness falls is nothing if not romantic. Fireworks over Utah are the same as fireworks over Anaheim, but the perfectly subdued luminosity, the very essence of Disneyland at night, imagines a clandestine feeling of awe overlooked by the thousands that visit daily. The true nightly performance is not over heads, but takes place aboard the Mark Twain Riverboat on the Rivers of America.

Most older people adore Disneyland because it serves as a transportation from their nine-to-five cubicle and unfulfilled sex lives to places where the struggles of life are put on the back-burner, unimportant, if only for a day. The aura of the wild west is only twenty feet from jazz city central, New Orleans Square, is only twenty feet from romanticized jungle, Adventureland. However, it's all in the modern day. For me, the draw of Disneyland, the reason for my intense gravitation towards the park, isn't for transportation, but for a sense of time travel. With the DeLorean, it's only 88 mph that allows the flux capacitor to work, but with Disneyland, it's only the Mark Twain, only at night and only in specific seats that the feeling is fully evoked.

Last year was the first time the Mark Twain steamrolled over me with an absolute force. Having always been a fan of the attraction, my friends and I had discovered the best, most overlooked place to be on the boat. On the second of three stories next to the stairs, there was a stage, once home to upbeat jazz bands, now a soulless storage space for unused life jackets. Sitting on top of this locked compartment, next to the decorative "This is not a flotation device" flotation device, we found ourselves in the very heart of the boat. From there, we watched those too tired to stand play music-less chairs on the front of the boat where about twenty uncomfortably white chairs rested.

I believe William Wordsworth, who coined that poetry is "emotion recollected in tranquility," would have produced his best work aboard the perfectly serene Mark Twain. Sitting in our choice seats, the buzz, the roar of the obnoxious guests subdued into a humming, soothing white noise, like the unnoticed scheduled train whistles back home, miles away. The Mark Twain, the only place in Disneyland to escape Disneyland. As the ship drifted along, away from the brightly-lit eggshell dock and the purples and blues dancing off the water by New Orleans Square, as it turned around the bend leaving the lights behind it, the lamps, decorated in late 19th century historical fashion, flickered darkening yellow, the only light remaining. And while the sensory details of the Mark Twain and Disneyland are still vivid, a feeling crept out from within my bones, reaching my muscles and nerves and caused a shiver to run down my spine. There was a hard to describe dreamlike quality of the honeydew light. The intensity of it was just dim enough that it refused my eyes to adjust or completely focus on any color or detail farther than ten feet away. Because of this, the scene was full of details without any definite detail, which left me with memories without any definite memory, like waking up from a vivid dream only to remember vagueness.

The Mark Twain roamed farther away from the rides and the bustle and deeper into darkness as a bodiless voice, simply called "The Captain," narrated our journey. Looking out past the railing, I could only make out black waving shadows. I knew these fluttering figments were trees because logic told me, but all sensory perceptions were useless to prove what anything was beyond the tangible barrier of the boat.

While reading Conrad's Heart of Darkness after such Mark Twain rides, I couldn't help but compare Marlow's descriptions of the immense and intimidating unknown mysteries of the African jungle with what I felt on the Riverboat in the middle of a theme park. The droning, homely southern voice of "The Captain," my friends surrounding me, the other passengers, the kids, the floors, the ceilings, the lights, the safe feeling of knowing the river was only a few feet deep, the life-jackets below me, the comfortableness of the wood against my straightened back, the warm, airy draft, the steps of feet on the stairs on both sides of me, all of it fell into the black abyss that circled around, surrounded me. It was looking into my impression of Disney's own heart of darkness, on a steamboat designed in the 1950s, that I sensed a feeling, a feeling dancing on the edge of my consciousness but never fully realized, of forgetfulness that I was in the 21st century, but could possibly be in the 1890s having just woken from a vivid dream, only remembering vagueness.

Of course, being a sane and rational person, the feeling lasted less than a second, but the impact was felt for the rest of the night and even up to writing this now. I can only fittingly compare the moment of timelessness to a kid losing a balloon. As the balloon drifts up, the guilty child reaches, but the balloon only floats progressively farther away, more and more unreachable.

That night on the Rivers of America, I was unsure what had happened and even eerily unaware if anything had, but as the Mark Twain slowed to a reminding halt back in its port between Frontierland and New Orleans Square, as "The Captain" told us of our ended journey and wished us a good night, I found myself, underneath the dim fluorescent bulbs, alone, the last one remaining on the boat.